Strings insights

Str.ings
Situational Awareness
Report
a socio-political commentary

Intelligence has been gathered and transmitted to me by a internal correspondent.

The name of the person who wrote the source from which this exerpt is extracted from will be kept anonymous to protect his/her identity

The purpose of this report is to help you to better understand the s.trings situation.

Witness an example of the intra-segregation and disunion of strings, the dichotomy between the pro-treating and anti-treating, and the state of duality i am in being unable to side with either party.
I'm just talking rubbish, just read. i just thought she has a point so i put it here, for those with similiar 'traditions'

23 Dec 2005

HC S E JTS

i came back from Boon Lay yesterday, to find these emails from HC.S.E's Yahoo! Groups.

it's about JTS [junior treat senior], and of course in this case i'm junior, the one supposed to treat a senior.

here's one email from one of the Top Officials [i'm obviously a small fry which is why i can talk my head off here, without fear =D] at H CSE:

"hey you guys i know there are probably like more than the 2 of you who don't approve of treating the seniors but i don't think there's a choice. herbert debra and ruilin were talking about it today and they thought it was their long awaited jts (and they sounded pretty excited)! so i suppose if you're broke at the moment then i think abel should bring some funds along and pay for you first. it's a cca event so don't try to consider you're exclusive. so even if you decide not to turn up for the dinner it's fine by anyone cos you're still gonna have to pay abel back.

in the future if any of you think that it's a burden to turn up for cca related events, i'd personally like to know, just so that i can also exclude you from our performances. it's that convenient.

have a good week."

yea a good week i bloody hell have. okay that's besides the point..

okay let me give you a recount of events..
the President gave us an email informing us about the JTS date + time + venue, then i saw the line that says "i expect that we'll have to treat the seniors".
obviously i'm against that, as to why i'll explain myself later.
so i replied saying something like.."can we NOT treat the seniors", and i gave a reason too.
Samantha replied too, saying that she's broke and that there're probably more seniors than juniors, so we might end up treating more than one senior that kinda thing -- you get my drift?
to top it off, Wei Xuan, Mr. Vice-President, also said that he didn't want to treat the seniors coz he's broke too.

this apparently caused some other Top Officials to get stirred up. which kinda explains that email above. okay i've decided to lump all emails together before i rant. here's another one..from another Top Official.

"i think its damn sad that we have to be bickering about treating the
seniors. you may think that our seniors havent done much for the cca,
or at least not in the way you would have liked them to contribute.
but dont ever forget that without them, we wouldnt be where we are
today. they earned the gold with honours award that has given us our
standing today. do you think we'll be getting invites to perform at
weddings and hilton without that award? if they havent done anything
for us, the least they did was to contribute to the playing. and i
dont think we'll want our juniors to treat us like that as well.

this is the plan now, as a compromise. abel has suggested that the cca
fund will pay$150 from the total bill. the remaining we'll split among
the 12 of us. this, and the individual gifts we'll be getting the
seniors, is our farewell for them.

if you think you've got a good reason to not pay, then please tell the
senior(s) involved yourselves."

let me give you my reasons for NOT wanting to treat the seniors, to something like Pizza Hut.

1. Pizza Hut is not some hawker centre, mind you. the price is different, and to me, it IS rather expensive. my meals are normally capped at $5. now you're not only telling me to eat at Pizza Hut, you're also asking me to PAY FOR THE SENIORS. that i find unacceptable. look, i may be reluctant to eat at Pizza Hut, but i still find it ACCEPTABLE at the very least. but treating the seniors??? really, give me a bloody good reason to treat them. yes, i agree fully that we would not have gotten Gold with Honours without their help [with referrence to the 2nd email and its accusations]. does it mean that, Gold with Honours OUGHT to come with a free meal at a restaurant too?? wow. i didn't know the Gold with Honours was so expensive! and if it is, i find it grossly out-of-proportion. if you're saying, oh we're eating at this restaurant for post-SYF celebrations -- i'm absolutely fine with it. but treating the seniors for what, their services??? hey we're not some hard-disk company who pays us for playing at Hilton. it's a CCA, do you need a reward for playing well, a reward coming in this form??
how about us then?? the current J1s contributed to SYF as well; are we gonna make the J1s next year treat us too?? for our glorious contributions to SYF and hence cementing the HCSE name/reputation, when they weren't even involved in this Gold-with-Honours SYF?? this cycle of you-treat-me-and-i-get-treated-next-year drives me sick to the gut.
so WHY SHOULD WE TREAT THEM??? why can't we just pay for our own meals and call it a CCA outing?? what's so..wrong about that??
and to be honest, i don't want the juniors to treat me next year. i just want to stop this sick cycle of treating seniors. pay for our own bills and have a nice CCA outing, is it THAT difficult?? coz after all, logically speaking, you'd be paying for your own Pizza Hut meal LOL. i'm sure we're all smart-assed enough to realise that.

2. yes i AM broke. i know it is a personal issue, but rest assured i did not spend every single cent of my holiday allowance or whatever you call it. you see, i'm broke in the sense that i want to limit my spending. i'm a well-known miser, but am i being overly miser in this case?? i think not. you may argue that i own a Steingraeber costs roughly around a car, a violin which costs around my dad's monthly salary, and that i stay in a big house, and have pretty okay clothes. but does that make me rich?? does that make me, or rather my family's future, financially sound?? i can easily get money from my dad, to spend at Pizza Hut. but is that right???
do i have to give you bank records and show you evidences that some people are actually in financial difficulty??
2 days ago i just treated my dear friend of 4 years, poodle, to some kind of a birthday cake -- for the 1st time. these seniors, hell, i only know their names and what instruments they play, sad to say.
i may look like i'm comfortably well-off now, but no. you don't wait for the winter to come then you stock up your supplies, coz when winter comes, you'll die. you stock up your supplies before winter comes, which is pretty much what i'm trying to do.

3. we've already gotten a present for the seniors -- the cap is at $10, which means, i spent around that amount. then why should we still treat the seniors?? this is getting out of hand/too much -- present + treat. to me, i can only accept present OR treat. but i've already bought the present, because i didn't even know we were supposed to treat.

4. i thought they already had some JTS at Fish and Co. earlier this year?? which i obviously didn't turn up, because i don't think i should spend at Fish and Co. Adam Hawker Centre would do.

so can someone enlighten me, WHY SHOULD WE TREAT THE SENIORS??? for their self-less contributions?? i don't buy that -- like i said, we aren't thriving on a reward system, we're a CCA.

in response to the 1st email,
so we still gotta pay Abel back even if we decide to back out of the dinner?? pay Abel back for what, for the senior's share?? to be honest, i was thinking of that [until i saw the compromise]. i'm not going for some bloody dinner and spend my dad's hard-earned money that way. if i really have to pay then fine, i can give the seniors money and they can go enjoy their free meal themselves, if they stoop so low to that extent.
and you threaten to exclude us from performances?? tell me, why should i pay this kinda "extra fee" just to play for the school?? besides this "extra fee" isn't justified at all -- we're not even using it for CCA, instead we're more like using it for filling our stomachs till we burst at Pizza Hut??? i smell injustice.
and haha, Mr. Vice-President actually replied to that sarcastic email, "oh okay then". LOL..i don't know if he meant it in a sarcastic manner but i thought: what's wrong anyway. if we have to pay for such stupid luxury stuff just to play for the school, honestly i was thinking fine exclude me. i'm not big deal anyway. probably just a premature ending to my ensemble journey. -shrugs-
and oh, Samantha actually apologised after reading that 1st email up there. she said she'd go with tradition..
well, don't expect me to be another Samantha. i will NOT apologise or give in to any dumb tradition which i feel is unjustified.
so there you go, 1st-emailer: EXCLUDE ME. FIRE ME FROM THE ENSEMBLE. because i refuse to pay for a senior's Pizza Hut lunch. wooHoo..what a joke Ms. Concert-mistress. =D

in response to the 2nd email,
i've already said above that i don't think we should get a free meal for playing well/contributing to the CCA. and the cycle goes on and on then it morphs into some disgusting tradition.
and yes, it IS a shame we're bickering over this; but i think it is more of a shame that you guys are so inconsiderately sticking to some stupid tradition, and to think we're 17-year-olds LOL.

BUT, an asshole i may be, i'm not an unreasonable asshole.
since the CCA is willing to pay for $150, then we foot any other extra costs, i'm fine with that. like i said, the most i'll accept is present OR treat.
so i shall turn up after all.
and i shall not get fired from the ensemble for not turning up LOL..

despite the resolution, those emails sent by the Top Officials [before the resolution] certainly left me seething.
how can they threaten us with such..grossly unfair stuff?? and how can they be so inconsiderate???

i have lost my respect for you guys, i'm sorry.

you may find it difficult to find a side to stand on, but as long as you're reasonable, i'll be on your side. in this case you definitely weren't, so i'm sorry i am against you, my friend.

END